sustentation
Americannoun
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maintenance in being or activity; the sustaining of life through vital processes.
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provision with means or funds for upkeep.
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means of sustaining life; sustenance.
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of sustentation
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin sustentātiōn- (stem of sustentātiō ) an upholding, equivalent to sustentāt ( us ) (past participle of sustentāre, frequentative of sustinēre to sustain ) + -iōn- -ion
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Soon Premier Mussolini ascended this mighty sustentation, planted himself on an imperial-seeming musnud.
From Time Magazine Archive
There remains, then, as the only intelligible rationale of solar sustentation, Helmholtz's shrinkage theory.
From A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century Fourth Edition by Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
The revenues confiscated were those used for “the finding, maintaining or sustentation of any priest or of any anniversary, or obit, lamp, light or other such things.”
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 1 "Gichtel, Johann" to "Glory" by Various
Interest as connected with the sustentation of a certain mode of social life.
From A Critical Examination of Socialism by W. H. (William Hurrell) Mallock
For the growth and sustentation of a forest and of such plants as prefer the woods to the openings it would far excel the deep and exhaustless alluvians of the prairie states.
From The Niagara River by Archer Butler Hulbert
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
